I think if you can find a good and right teacher, you can progress very well in Buddhism.

There are people who can remember their past lifes naturally. They are also people who can know they are dreaming naturally.

I have a friend, who during sleeping, she can see her body in the bed and she can move around the house. It is natural. I just think that if she know dream yoga, her path in buddhism will be quite exceptional. Unfortunately, she is a christian.

I am not here nor there.I am not right nor wrong.I do not exist neither non-exist.I am not I nor non-I.I am not in samsara nor nirvana.To All Buddhas, I bow down for the teaching of emptiness. Thank You!

I think you should get over yourself. You have such a lofty idea about yourself that it's natural you fail to see what's enlightenment all about. After all, with so much special abilities (that all teachers fail to recognize- perhaps because you're imagining things?) you already rock, so why do you need enlightenment for? Spare us, please. A little humbleness would do wonders for you, especially if it got you beyond elaborating your pet theories about karma and all that and led you to actually troubling yourself to learn something. You may be practicing something for 25 years. It just doesn't seem like Dharma.Probably you'll hate me after this post, but someone had to make a reality check at this point. Hopefully you'll snap out of it. In the worst case you'll just keep traveling down the same self aggrandizement path you've been walking.

Agree with Dechen.... if the Dharma has made you more arrogant and egotistical then you have defeated the whole purpose of the Dharma. Then it is safe to say that those 25 years of practicing have gone to waste. However, this is the degenerate age of Mappo so what can one expect from anyone these days?

I have no control over how any thinks, feels, believes, and so forth regarding anything I say. You feel that way and think that way, i respect that. Im not going to argue. I didn't come here to argue Just best to leave it alone. May be some day ill find someone who will understand me. I think what I need to do is chant to find someone who can understand me. But your response has caused me to chant to find someone who can understand me. So i thank you for your response because now it will cause me to go in that direction.

But then how could I ever expect you to understand what i say. Your perfectly fine, I appreciate your response, it has helped me. I am grateful.

I do not want to say anything to cause the situation to get worse. There is no in me coming back and saying , IM RIGHT", because of the topic and the situation. I can not expect you to believe what iI say. How can I . Its totally reasonable you feel and think the way you do. You dont know me, Im a total stranger to you. How could I expect you to believe.

But looking at enlightenment like its a light switch, where your not enlightened and then all of a sudden you are enlightened, is concept I cant relate too.

We can have truly sudden and unexpected insight that can transform us/ However mostly the sudden enlightenment is for a handful of people throughout time (the real sudden enlightenment).

But when people would speak, it would sound like their talking like its a light switch.

Some, more Zen than not but not just. But the reality is gradual and even transitory (people's behaviour and insight is unstable up to a point). In fact technically even Nobel Bodhisattvas on the Stages who have directly seen emptiness have a degree of instability since on the lower Stages they have to progress within x numbers of lifetimes or they regress to some extent (so on the 1st stage they are supposed to have a limit of 100 lifetimes or else their insight degrades although this is a little controversial).

In other systems "sudden" enlightenment means over a lifetime or at death.

So sudden is really gradual except possibly for a small handful of people.

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

DarwidHalim wrote:I have a friend, who during sleeping, she can see her body in the bed and she can move around the house. It is natural. I just think that if she know dream yoga, her path in buddhism will be quite exceptional. Unfortunately, she is a christian.

Unfortunately? She can perfect loving beings in this lifetime .... good stuff!

"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

I know through out my practice, I would see faces of people that would emerge in my mind. I could never relate them to the people in my present life. These people that would emerge in my mind were people that I have never seen before. I couldn’t understand why they would emerge. When eve they would emerge, I would be able to see them from the top of their chest upwards. Each one had their eyes open and looking straight. Each one of them had a straight face wit their mouth closed with no facial expression. Each and ever one of them were like this. When ever they appeared , they would appear in my front left side of my mind. They would emerge up in my mind , stay for about 2 or 3 seconds and then disappear. When ever they would appear, I would look over at them and see their face., then right after that they would disappear. When ever they would eerge they would never interfere with what ever I was chanting about. Each face was different, none ever being the same. There were at least 1,000 of these through out the years.

For the first 15 years I would wonder why these face would come up. I finally realized that these faces that were coming up in my mind through time, were people who I use to know or interact with in past life times.

When ever these faces emerged, I had no mental or emotional thoughts or feeling towards them. Its like looking at a stranger you pass by quickly.

Once I realized that they were memories of people who I use to know in past lifetimes, it never bothered me again.

But human faces wasn't the only thing that would emerge.

Entire sceneries and buildings would also emerge in my mind just like the way the people did.

But sceneries and building rarely ever came up.

Not any where near as much as the face came up in my mind, were buildings and sceneries that would come up. But these building and scenery would come up in my mind the same way as the faces came up, never bothering me. I would look at the scenery and the buildings and when I looked at them I couldn’t remember them from this life time. Just like I did with the pictures, I realized that these things were coming from past life times

Years later I was thinking about these thoughts of buildings and scenery that would emerge in my mind. I reflected on them and realized that they were barren of humans and animals. Not one human or animal was present.

But you can forget about everything I have said up to now in this post.

Now I want to bring your attention to something else.

I know through out the years people at times would complain about their thoughts they have when chanting.

People would ask “ what’s with the thoughts I have when I chant? Others would complan of reoccurring thoughts , while others would complain about thoughts coming up in their mind that they couldn’t understand why they were there. Others would complain that they would get thoughts that would comee up in their mind and they couldn’t get rid of them and so forth.

These thoughts their talking about aren’t scary thoughts or bad thoughts, their just thoughts that are annoying, bothersome, questionable as to their presents. Its like getting a thought from your mind that comes from your life and it emerges and you don’t know why its there, its not scary but its annoying that its there but you cant get rid of it. Eventually at some point it will go away but while its there, you just don’t understand why its there. Its that kind of thing.

Discussions about these kinds of thoughts have come up. People say we or I don’t know why these things come up like that. Others say we have no control over the thoughts we have. And so forth.

I talked to some Buddhists about this and no one can come up with any conclusion as to why these things go on with thoughts when people chant. Its baffling.

One day I was reflecting on this and I came to realize that the reason for some of these thoughts is because past memories are being cleaned out of the karma and that these thoughts that come up enact as a buffer between the individual and the memories that are being cleaned out. I believe that these kinds of thought are the ones that come up in the mind and keep the person who is chanting from being able to see the memories that are being cleaned out when chanting. I believe that these thoughts that people complain about are the very thoughts that are protecting the person who is chanting from being able to be able to see the memories that are being cleaned out from past life times.

I have had the same experience with thoughts to. I would get thoughts of things fro my life that I couldn’t figure out why I was thinking that thought , I have had thoughts were they would return time and time out when I would go chant. There are many times that I would ask, “why is that thought coming up” or else “ why is that thought returning and keep coming back

I believe that those thoughts are acting as a buffer to protect who is chanting from seeing the memory karma from past life times from emerging. I believe that how long a memory karma takes to clean out will determine how long any specific thought will last or return .

We talk about thoughts word and action in Buddhism. We talk about changing karma. But one thing we never talk about is memory being clean out from past life times. I believe that memory is also eradicated along with the rest of the karma. But no one that I know of considers memory being eradicated. So no wonder that people complain about their thoughts when they chant. They don’t understand what is really going on.

One more thing to this.

I do believe that certain things from past lives does come to the surface in the mind. For me its pictures of people, sceneries and buildings. For others it may be done a different way. I do believe that certain things from past life times do come up. But I think most people cant recognize these things as such. Yet, when they emerge in my mind, I recognize them for what they are.

I step away and turn away from all of this, that I have just talked about. I now turn towards what I said about the panels.

I showed the panels and explained that they are present because it is immutable karma and that it takes soaking to get the panels removed so that the karma can flow and allow the person to eradicate their evil karma.

I now turn towards what I said about thoughts coming up in the mind to block out any memory of memories being eradicated.’

I realize that I see two different blockages.

I realize that I see two different blockages, where each has a different purpose.

I realize that each blockage is in a completely different karma.

So now, I stand back and ask myself

How come I can see two blockages, where each blockage serves a different purpose, and where each blockage is found in different karmas?

catmoon wrote:Hmm. Sometimes it seems as though people are so concerned with avoiding attachment to Buddhahood and enlightenment that they over-correct and end up with a small but real aversion to both.

Interesting. Some wise said: those who don't know speak,those who know don't speak. Since only compounded ideas-fabrications about are formed, which are a veil. And then aversion/attachments to such ideas arise. Oops and then to avoid that... opinions-entanglements keeps us nicely busy in any case.We are better than a fly in a compounded spiderweb, we are making our own web.http://siddharthasintent.org/community/ ... raDJKR.pdf

Im not saying that Im seeking to avoid budddhahood. Im saying I dont understand it. But then again, im still a common mortal, im not suppose to understand it. Nichiren Daishonin said something to the effect of , when one person looks at the title of the lotus sutra they see the book and the letters on the title. Another person may look at the title of the lotus sutra and see the golden Buddha's. I stand back and ask "What happens if they see only one golden buddha on the title of the lotus sutra. Maybe this stuff that Im going through with the subject of enlightenment may be the three poisons. But it is irreverent because I have a relationship with the lotus sutra and Ill become enlightened. I think its the lite switch type mentality that has brought all of this on. This thread has caused me to look at the lite switch mentality as the culprid.

It is very common for many people , when dealing with something that is unknown to them, to build phantoms in their mind. This can be seen in every day life. No one deals with the unknown the same way. There are a lot of people who have to go to mental health professional because of phantoms in their mind pertaining to something. Im sure that im not the only one who goes through what i have explained of what I go through. Maybe not the same way. I all way monitored my mind to make sure that Im not opposed to becoming enlightened. :

The mental illness I have causes me to have phantoms all the time. Its the nature of the disease going on with buddhahood as I have explained. mentally ill people get a lot of phantoms in their minds, some more so , others less depending on the disease. But the main point is to talk about the phantoms, this way it has less of a chance of festering. But what exactly is this karma? is it the three poisons. I dont think so, but it may. But I think that its karma from the past. If a pack of military soldiers go into a town and terrorize the town with out touching any one and then does this town after town , then how does that karma come back as. I dont think its the three poisons that creates these kinds of karma.

I found that about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I had read parts of the lotus sutra a few years ago and I wound up putting it down and wasnt going to read ever again. But then 2 or 3 weeks ago, I came across that website and I find it very interesting. It renewed my interest n the lotus sutra. It makes it easier to understand. It never occurred to me to look to find commentaries on the lotus sutra. Here you are giving me commentaries by the same man. This is really great. Thanks. Ill keep the link.

I found that about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I had read parts of the lotus sutra a few years ago and I wound up putting it down and wasnt going to read ever again. But then 2 or 3 weeks ago, I came across that website and I find it very interesting. It renewed my interest n the lotus sutra. It makes it easier to understand. It never occurred to me to look to find commentaries on the lotus sutra. Here you are giving me commentaries by the same man. This is really great. Thanks. Ill keep the link.

Here are the other chapters, except 14 - I do not know why the link to it does not work.